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9. Shooty misses Bill King Posted: November 12, 2008 at 03:22 PM (#3007651)
You know, I theoretically would, but I don't know if I could just stand there and and take it either. That would take some serious fortitude.

no way. i swung at a full toss in cricket once and missed and the d-mn ball hit me in the inner thigh about two inches away from a bullseye. that hurt pretty bad, but it scared me even more. also convinced me not to play cricket anymore.

At most batting cages I've been to, it's common courtesy to pick up the balls and toss them back in the bucket when you're done. You're expected to do it. Everyone does it. The exceptions are the outdoor circular cage places that you see at family fun parks, where that's automated.

ya, my dalliance with cricket was brief. i fielded a hard line drive barehanded once and timed it just right, took it right into the meaty parts of both hands, so it didn't hurt at all. then i stupidly put my hand out on my next chance and it hit my fingers and i just about collapsed.

hey crispix what's with the handle? did you just decide to try it on again for a while? i've been meaning to go back to my original for a while, maybe i should ...

Would you take a 60 mph pitch directly in the nads--and I mean directly--for 1.2 million?

Many variables to consider:

A) pre or post tax?
B) pre or post attorney fees?
C) from what distance? the regulation 60'6"? point blank? from back wall of cage, where you are likely to be picking up the balls?
d) rubber BP ball or standard hardball?

I assume I couldn't wear a cup - but if someone offered me the deal, I would carefully read the contract and if it didn't specify that I could not... I would - and then have a really good lawyer on retainer.

Would you take a 60 mph pitch directly in the nads--and I mean directly--for 1.2 million?

I've been married for over 13 years. I have two kids, a mortgage, and no reasonable way to escape the legal profession any time soon. On top of that I'm bald, I live in Ohio, and my parents recently moved to a place less than two miles from my home.

I mention this here every few years or so, but I had it happen (as a fielder) in a pickup game 15 or so years ago, while playing a very deep 2B / short CF (I was actually the 3B - we were using a weird shift) - I'm sure the speed of the ball well exceeded 60.
In short:
* I'm a lousy athlete, at best - with poor reaction skills. No, I don't know why I was (normally) at third, I used to play it a lot for some reason (probably because I'm worse everywhere else).
* The hitter was easily the best player on the field - former D2 guy with a quick bat.
* The shift worked - he hit it *right* at me, a laser.
* Clearly, I had trouble adjusting to the speed of the ball. My strongest memory of the whole thing was/is the awareness of just how fast it was going and a flicker of worry about my ability to handle it.
* It lodged in my crotch, knocking me the #### out. As it stayed there after I fell over, he was called out.
* I came to a few minutes later. No external bleeding, no long term damage, but I was very sore and swollen for a few days. Not the worst feeling I've ever had, but up there.

I assume this was because you were unconscious for the really bad stuff. I'm still curious to know what happened to you that hurt worse. Maybe it's related to military service, in which case, sorry.

But, considering that you are a poster with seemingly all of his faculties remaining (at least mentally from what I can tell), I'm gonna say that yes I would take the 60 mph shot to the nuts for $1.2M. And I hadn't even considered before that I could pass out from the pain and miss the worst part. That makes it a no brainer, even if I'm not guaranteed to pass out.

Peter Gibbons: What would you do if you had a million dollars?
Lawrence: I'll tell you what I'd do, man, two chicks at the same time, man.
Peter Gibbons: That's it? If you had a million dollars, you'd do two chicks at the same time?
Lawrence: Damn straight. I always wanted to do that, man. And I think if I had a million dollars I could hook that up, cause chicks dig a dude with money.
Peter Gibbons: Well, not all chicks.
Lawrence: Well the kind of chicks that'd double up on a dude like me do.

Is it payable in gold bullion? Or in soon to be worthless paper money?

Gold's not going to do you any good down in your bunker. I'd advise you to invest in guns, ammo and canned tuna instead.

And of course, everybody who wishes to give their soon to be worthless dollar bills a loving new home can mail them to me. The 200 dollars I hadn't got around to exchange back since I last was in New York are worth 20% more Swedish kronas now.

this is the best thread in a long time. every entry I read, I think of a follow -- and somebody has it in the next post or two.

I'll add my close encounter. I was a second-string catcher in high school, was way late for practice one day, ran to the field and realized I forgot to put in my cup. sure enough, somebody fouled one down and back and it one-hopped me in the nads. I didn't pass out, but I was gasping on the ground for 20 minutes or so.

not the same as a pitch straight to the nuts, but I'd suffer it again for, say, $50,000. it'd be tough to replicate the seeing-eye foul ball tho.

Well, I had a vasectomy with only a local anesthetic that didn't work very well. You haven't lived until you've felt a scalpel rip through your scrotum. If you remember that scene at the end of Braveheart when he gets disemboweled and the look on his face when they cut him open...I think that's what I looked like. The pain lasted a second or two but I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

I was pitching in a slo-pitch softball game a couple years ago, and the batter hit a laser that hit me two inches above my groin. I had an imprint of the stiching in my skin for two days. No way in HELL would I take that same ball to the groin, even for $1.2M.

Peter Gibbons: What would you do if you had a million dollars?
Lawrence: I'll tell you what I'd do, man, two chicks at the same time, man.
Peter Gibbons: That's it? If you had a million dollars, you'd do two chicks at the same time?
Lawrence: Damn straight. I always wanted to do that, man. And I think if I had a million dollars I could hook that up, cause chicks dig a dude with money.
Peter Gibbons: Well, not all chicks.
Lawrence: Well the kind of chicks that'd double up on a dude like me do.

* It lodged in my crotch, knocking me the #### out. As it stayed there after I fell over, he was called out.

While I have sympathy for your pain, that was the wrong call. It's only an out when you control the ball with your glove or bare hand. A ball stuck in your crotch is not an out, unless a teammate retrieved it before it touched the ground. Then, you get an assist!

Dude, he still cleared $1 million, and there's no guarantee I'd incur the same damage, although I guess it could be worse. From everyone else's stories, it seems like there were, at worst, a few weeks of pain and then everything returned to normal, which is well worth a million dollars to me.

fair enough. but it looks to me like those aren't the worst case scenarios. i'd bet the worst case scenario is blunt testicular trauma; in other words, a vasectomy without benefit of anesthesia, followed by removal of all those mushed up bits you won't be needing anymore.

OK, I'll divulge: I have been hit in the testicles too many times, playing baseball, softball, and hockey. You'd think I'd have learned after the first bad hop and put on a cup, but no. Not even after the second or third time it happened. Mind you, these injuries occurred over several years. It wasn't one after another. But still, injuries to the testicles take their toll, and now I have a hydrocele on my left one that is quite uncomfortable. I doubt I ever took a direct hit with a ball traveling close to 60 mph, so I will say that I would not care to sacrifice myself for the money.

I dunno, I think I'd rather be punched by a fat dude than kneed by Alistair Overeem.

While each knee would probably hurt more, I'm thinking that the repeated punching probably didn't feel all that great either - especially since he could see Hackney winding up each time and had to know exactly what was coming next.

I grant you that if you told me beforehand that 'it' wouldn't work anymore or would be permanently disfigured in a disgusting way I would not accept the deal.

i do believe that is the level of risk we are talking about here. not a brief ouchy in the beans area. but i will say i'm not a medical expert. this site has a ton of lawyers. any doctors around who can give a little perspective?

60 mph? Was first thinking that was slower than a Wakefield knuckler, which appears to just "drift" to the plate when you see it on TV.

Then I thought about going to a minor league game this summer that had one of those radar gun booths set up. I took two steps back, gave it everything I had, about threw my shoulder out of its socket, and posted 67 mph.

A ball stuck in your crotch is not an out, unless a teammate retrieved it before it touched the ground.

It was still there when I came to (no one wanted to mess with that general area) - so I get the putout. (I think they called the game anyway, that detail is hazy.)

I'd do that again for 1.2 mil (with a guarantee of no damage). Otherwise, nooooooooooooooo.

More generally, I've had a number of crotch injuries (other sports ones involved catching w/o a cup in LL and getting a bit of backswing and an onion punch in a basketball game) - my wife used to worry that having kids would be out of the question. I've no idea how I've escaped serious injury.

Dude, he required $160K of medical work on his unit. That's a hell of a lot of medical work on an extremely sensitive area.

True, but it's fairly common for plaintiffs' attorneys to inflate the medical bills in hopes of recovering some multiple of the medicals in settlement or at trial. The payments might be 100% legit or maybe mostly for some sort of "massage" treatments. That's not to say that it makes the Shooty Challenge™ worth the risk.

Obviously considering the doctor bills, this was pretty serious...but I was hit in the face right at the browline at a cage years ago, another time in the side of the head as I tried to duck out of the way, and once in the inner thigh...I think I'd take my chances for the bucks and I hope I'm not hurt as badly as this guy was.

When I was a teenager, my friends and I used to rent old karate movies and then videotape it while we fought each other, trying to emulate what we'd just seen in the films. There was one time I rushed at my buddy, and he threw up his knee as fast as he could - aiming for my gut, he claimed - but he misjudged and got me square in the goods. I dropped like a sack of potato's and lay on the ground in the fetal position twitching for a full half hour or so while my friends laughed hysterically and kept the camera rolling. The friend who owned the camera held on to this footage for years, bringing it out at parties and other social occasions whenever he was in the mood to have some fun at my expense.

No way in hell would I take a 60 mph ball to the balls for money. The risk of permanant disfiguration or dysfunction is waaaaay too high...